Advertising could learn a few things from Buddhism (on checking into a retreat with a social media addiction...)

I recently spent a weekend away at Gaia house in Devon on a zen Buddhist retreat. First of all... I'm not really a Buddhist, but I felt the need to check into somewhere for a few days where I would be without phone, internet and more importantly any sort of social media interaction.

Gosh was it difficult, to begin with.

The house is amazing, an old monastery set in the rolling countryside of Devon. An amazing view greets you, as you are woken by the bell every morning at 6am, and the splendor of the place is heightened by the fact there is no phone signal (you can't phone or text anybody, including twitter, to broadcast it's beauty) and you can't check your email or facebook.

The weekend was focusing on non attachment and intimacy.

To study the way of the Buddha is to study the way of the self,
to study the way of the self is to let go of the self,
to let go of the self is to become intimate with all things,
to become intimate with all things is to watch the mind and body drip away.

What has this got to do with advertising?

Well it's just something that I think a lot of people at Dare could do with taking on board in terms of letting things go a little bit, loosening up and being playful. This applies to creatives holding desperately onto their idea, so much that they loose the context within which it sits and so blindly slog on forgetting who they are talking to. For planners, it is often a case of holding onto a line in their brief, or a diagram of overlapping circles talking about the target audience or strengths of a product so much that it blinds them to the really good ideas which ring an element of connection in everyone and cannon the whole target dart-board off the wall. For creative Directors, it is about letting go of your pre-conceived notion of what should answer the brief, and so connecting with all the ideas on the table; fostering the ability to flip 180 degrees on the thing that you originally thought was the way forward.

...you start to see the picture. Too often in the work place I see account people holding on so tightly to their budget, that they loose all sense of what the work is actually about. Practicing a measure of non-attachment to your project will, far from getting you into an un-attached hole where you no longer give a shit about anything, bring you closer to the world view of your job. It'll let you explore weak links, new exciting avenues - be daring and courageous enough to make big changes towards the end, focus on tiny details or face your client and say we're not happy with our work; we need more time to get it right.